My past inventions of Disc Golf disc-catching devices, U.S. Pat. No. 4,039,189; U.S. Pat. No. 4,461,484; and U.S. Pat. No. 4,792,143 have focused on the need to provide technology to catch the ever-improving disc design. According to many of my disc golf buddies who freely criticize my previous inventions and are even freer to point out areas of required improvement, the pendulum has swung away from heavier, faster projectiles to discs that fly, weigh less, and are easier for recreational player's to control. This presents a unique problem to disc-catching devices that must now catch a disc weighing 150 grams or less compared to 180 grams. A single piece of energy absorbing material such as a chain needs to gently absorb the forward motion of the disc, as well as the spin of the disc to avoid a rejection. As the energy of the disc moves the chain, the disc will impact at least one other piece of chain, and, more than likely, two more pieces of the outer ring of chain. If the energy of the disc exceeds the mass of outer chains, the disc will then encounter as many as two lengths of inner chain, which absorb the final energy of the disc that then drops into the basket thus completing the hole.
Another phenomenon encountered by the disc is how many links up from the bottom ring the disc impacts the chain. If the total weight of one length of the chain is 263.5 grams (21 links), each link up increases the mass by 12.6 grams; therefore, the mass of the chain increases as the disc hits higher and higher until it hits the second or third link from the top. These links have their movement restricted by the hook that the chains are attached to. As a result, a lighter disc will not have the mass sufficient to overcome the mass of the chain and will bounce out, be rejected.
Observations of discs being thrown into our catching devices have shown a distinct pattern of successful catches and rejections that indicate that discs that have a weight of 180 grams are almost always caught from three links to the bottom of the chain and rarely caught by link number two and almost never caught by the top link. Discs of 150 grams or less, unless thrown at excessive speed, often miss a catch down to link number six or seven and are generally caught down to link number ten and almost always caught by link number fourteen and always caught by the last seven links.